He has conducted numerous lectures, presentations and training sessions for schools, libraries, historical societies, business gatherings, government agencies, Indian tribes and corporate diversity groups about American Indian history, cultures, business development, population demographics, economics and so forth. 

Ben Sherman serves as President of the Western American Indian Chamber in Denver, Colorado.  He attended Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding schools through elementary and high school before going to college and achieving his engineering license.  He worked in management positions in the aerospace, defense, computer and telecommunications industries before helping to found the non-profit Western American Indian Chamber.  He has headed that organization for 13 years, where the goal is to support Indian business and economic development, while respecting and preserving native cultures and traditions.  The emphasis for several years has been on Indian tourism development.  Sherman launched a new initiative, the Native Tourism Alliance, which supports the marketing and promotion of Indian tourism enterprises across the entire U.S. 

Ben is a partner in Medicine Root, Inc., arranging tours into Indian Country, performing consulting work in Indian business development and operating a mail order business for Native American books and music. 

Presentation Subjects 

The Legacy of William Clark:
Exploitation, Displacement and Devastation 

Ben Sherman has researched and developed a presentation that explores the long career William Clark devoted to the intense manipulation of Indian tribes under his control.  Clark’s career was remarkable because of the central role he played in the rapid spread of the new nation. Less than eight decades after Clark first passed through the pristine Indian lands, the U.S. took most of the Louisiana Purchase from the Indians through deception, force and starvation.  As Clark spent his many years manipulating Indians in the Missouri region, he cultivated a reputation as their benevolent protector.  Clark was accepted by many Indian leaders as their good friend.  He demonstrated that friendship by taking huge parts of their homelands. 

Sixty-seven treaties were executed under Clark’s watch as Superintendent of Indian Affairs and Treaty Commissioner.  He even cleared all Indian tribes out of his home state of Missouri.  Clark, his relatives and business partners gained wealth from Indian trade.  Monies from tribal annuities authorized by Clark found its way into St. Louis cash boxes. Clark had complete power over all aspects of the Indian trade, including the evil liquor that enriched merchants and destroyed tribal communities.  Clark’s long reign as Missouri Territory Governor, Indian Treaty Commissioner and Superintendent of Indian Affairs led to the eventual devastation of all independent tribal nations of the great Missouri region. 

The direct link between the Indian removal policies of Thomas Jefferson and the actions of William Clark are made abundantly clear in this presentation.  Sherman asserts that Clark and Jefferson very likely met and planned together the grand scale of deceptions and thefts that eventually cost the Indians their freedom, lives and lands. 

America’s Original People
We Know and Love America, But Does America Know and Love Us?

Ben Sherman conducts a popular session that provides a highly informative short course about Native American origins, history, treaties, cultural values, Indian-white relations, art/music/dance/literature, current tribal affairs, and contemporary Indian life.

It was said by author Jack Weatherford that native history and culture are still a “mystery…after five hundred years.”  Sherman attempts to erase the common Hollywood stereotypes that Americans carry about native people as he goes beyond what he calls the usual “three T’s of teaching about American Indians…Teepees, Tomahawks and Tom-Toms.”Sherman believes that most Americans are innocently ignorant about the original people of this land, and that this often includes schoolteachers, principals, librarians and administrators.  His observations indicate that young Americans grow up receiving inputs from schools, movies, television, friends and family that create lasting impressions of Native Americans that are false, inaccurate, incomplete and biased.  He discusses how you can help change those impressions.

Sherman presents an attractive slide show and discussion of the history of native occupation in the plains and mountains of his home region.  The relationship of the indigenous tribal nations with the natural world, and especially the buffalo, will be discussed.  The presentation covers native history from thousands of years in the past, as well as more recent history from the 1800's, and ending with a discussion of contemporary Indian life.

Sherman will introduce the Native American concept of traditional “star knowledge,” where ancient native people sought to learn about themselves and their place in the universe through the study of the stars, sun and moon.  He will describe how native people were able to identify and gather food and medicinal plants in nature the same way you are able to shop the market shelves. 

Sherman will speak of the values and principles that guide most Native Americans throughout their everyday lives…community closeness, generosity, respect for elders, and a belief in the ancient natural law of the Creator, where all peoples and living things are a part of the sacred circle of life.

Sherman will conduct an open dialogue with the audience to conclude the session.  He will have a variety of books for sale that are by and about Native Americans.

Watchers of the Ancient Skies
A Presentation of Lakota Stellar Traditions 

 "Watchers of the Ancient Skies" is best presented in a planetarium, where it can have the most drama and effect.  However, the show can also be effectively presented on a screen utilizing a projector and computer.  The show beautifully presents Lakota star traditions, showing Lakota star constellations and striking photographic images of Lakota homeland scenes. 

Ben Sherman offers a truly fascinating story of how the Lakota people used their

 knowledge of the stars and the earth to harmonize their lifeways with the known universe.  These traditions have been estimated to be 3,000 years old.  What we know from oral history is that sometime in the deep past, the Lakota combined their understanding of the stars, the sun and the moon with their vast knowledge of the earth to create defining traditions, customs and ceremonies. 

They believed in the concept of stellar mirroring, the concept that what is shown to be in the stars is also contained on the earth.  The sacred unity of earth and sky became an essential element of the traditional Lakota belief system.       

The Black Hills are considered by the Lakota to be a sacred enclosure on the earth.  In the traditions of the Lakota, Black Hills sites carry special relationships to Lakota stellar theology.  Devil's Tower and Bear Butte are both in the Black Hills vicinity and are well known as significant sacred sites.  Ceremonial sacred journeys that were conducted annually through special Black Hills landforms will be described.

The buffalo carries a strong relationship to the Lakota in their belief system.  In "Watchers of the Ancient Skies," the buffalo, called Tatanka by the Lakota, is shown to possess special powers that make the great animal vitally essential to the entire character and existence of the Lakota.

“Watchers of the Ancient Skies” was produced by Ben Sherman based upon information from the book Lakota Star Knowledge that was written by Ronald Goodman and published by Sinte Gleska University on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation.  Mr. Goodman wrote the book after many years of research and talks with Lakota elders.  The information remains the cultural and intellectual property of the Lakota people.